What are the incremental steps to better coffee?

[Kudzu]

This is intended as a just-for-fun exercise, though it could be enlightening for a newbie lurker or passerby. Who knows, maybe we can start a couple more willing victims down that slippery slope most of us traveled to arrive here.

A comment by a friend, who knows I am a little coffee-obsessed, that he should probably think about improving his coffee situation, set me thinking. If a person accustomed to brewing Maxwell House in their Mr.Coffee wanted to move in the direction of better coffee, what would be logical incremental steps? If you could only change one thing at the time, what would be the order of progression?

Without pretending to have any expertise or qualifications for advising anyone, I am going to throw out a list of a few items to provoke discussion and invite you to copy and paste my list into your post and then rearrange, add, delete, to your liking, with the idea the list will build and be refined over time.

*Scrupulous cleanliness of coffeemaker
*Better water (filtered instead of tap water)
*Correct water/ground coffee ratio
*Better coffee (freshness and quality)
*Quality grinder
*Freshly roasted whole beans
*SCAA spec coffeemaker
*Refine brewing technique

You will not hurt my feelings by trashing my list, only by not playing!

 

[Kilowatt]

*Scrupulous cleanliness of coffeemaker
*Better water (filtered instead of tap water)
*Correct water/ground coffee ratio
*Better coffee (freshness and quality)
*Quality grinder
*Freshly roasted whole beans
*SCAA spec coffeemaker
*Refine brewing technique

Here are my thoughts:

Skip the coffeemaker entirely. Try a manual brew method of some kind (french press, pour over, aeropress, to name a few) Everything else is good.

Also, having the grinder is only half the battle, need to dial in the grind that is just right for your method, particularly with french press.

 

[PinkRose]

Your friend, who is currently using Maxwell House Coffee in his Mr. Coffee Maker, would logically start out by using better coffee in his coffee maker and tasting the difference. Assuming that the person already keeps his coffee maker clean, a baby step would be to go to a local roaster, and buy some freshly roasted coffee and have it ground for him. Then when he makes his coffee the usual way, he'll taste a difference. The desire for even better coffee will happen naturally. Before you know it, he'll be following your list and buying all sorts of coffee making equipment.

I'm not going to try to rearrange your list. No time for games today!

Rose